By Steven Russolillo
of DOW JONES NEWSWIRES
AUGUST 5, 2011, 5:17 P.M. ET
NEW YORK (Dow Jones)--U.S. blue-chip stocks closed higher Friday in a whipsawed trading session, but it wasn't enough to prevent major indexes from staging the biggest weekly decline since the financial crisis.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average finished up 60.93 points, or 0.54%, to 11444.61. For the week, the blue-chip index finished down 698.63 points, or 5.75%, its biggest weekly point drop since October 2008. It has dropped 9.75% over the last two weeks and is down 1.15% for the year.
Stocks experienced turbulent trading through much of Friday's session. The Dow gained as much as 171.73 points minutes after the open following a better-than-expected U.S. jobs report, but lost those gains within the first half-hour of trading and dropped as much as 244.68 points at its morning low.
The measure bounced off the lows in the early afternoon as investors cheered news that Italy will speed up its fiscal-consolidation timetable. Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi pledged to push labor reforms and said Italy would balance its budget by 2013, a year earlier than planned.
Berlusconi's comments came at a hastily called news conference in an effort to quell fears about the euro zone's third-largest economy.
"The somewhat stabilizing news out of Europe [allowed us] to bounce from very oversold levels," said Tom Donino, co-head of trading at First New York Securities.
The Standard & Poor's 500-stock index edged 0.69 point, or 0.06%, lower to 1199.38. For the week, it finished down 7.2%, its biggest percentage drop since November 2008. The index is down 10.83% throughout the last two weeks.
The Nasdaq Composite Index tumbled 23.98 points, or 0.94%, to 2532.41. The technology-oriented index slumped 8.13% this week and is down 11.42% over the last two weeks.
Volume was heavy, as 8.62 billion shares traded hands in NYSE composite volume. It was the largest volume day since May 7, 2010, the day after the "flash crash." By comparison, average daily volume this year is 4.14 billion, excluding Friday's action. --
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